Father Gascoigne
by dib07
Summary: He stood over the latest abomination he had killed, relishing the scent of its spilled blood. He was fuelled by the blood, manipulated by the blood, savaged by the blood. There would be no turning back now. Not for him.


**Dib07:** Hello there all my readers. This here is a little something different. And so I represent to you some Bloodborne. Enjoy! And if you'd like some more don't be afraid to message the crap out of me or review. Whatever. Dib out.

**A Bloodborne Oneshot**

**Father Gascoigne**

By Dib07

xxx

The nights were long, but they ended, one way or another. However, very soon the moon rose anew, full and bright, like an eye surveying the deepened hysteria of Yharnam as the plague spread, causing not just beasts to rise, but causing all of Yharnam to go mad one way or another.

Gascoigne had never seen such a night as this, or a moon so close. He watched from a safe vantage point as people set fire to beasts; crucifying them on beams of wood as the pale embers sung through flesh. The townspeople, so far gone, now attacked hunters, believing them to be the cause of this unstoppable disease, labelling them a curse.

But Gascoigne knew differently. Blood – healing blood that supposedly cured all woes – came from the Healing Church. It was the ministers and its founders that knew of this curse, yet did little as the people in Yharnam died. Gascoigne had tried to expose the truth, but it had been too late, and so he had left them to protect his family.

There were no humans left. And he himself and taken the blood like everyone else had. It was only a matter of time until he himself started showing signs of the Beast.

The rally of hunters that came to purge the streets of beast every night were impossibly rare. Most were now corrupted, choosing to live like beasts, or even siding with them completely. Others had left Yharnam to undertake that long journey into the wild, hoping to find a better world. No doubt they would carry the rancid sickness with them.

And so the death toll started rising. Mourners came and built statues to honour the dead. Bodies filled the church's grave and soon there were so much death that coffins were left on the streets, some padlocked to keep the beast-carcass within. For superstition grew as much as did fear. People blamed almost anything on this plague, but hardly anyone took note of the blood they injected into themselves to stave off illness and injury.

Ludwig of the Healing Church tried to purge the beast scourge himself by rallying the Yharnam people. But that quickly failed. Man was easy prey to fear, and many locked themselves away, only to turn slowly mad while the others outside turned beast to further ignite the conflict.

The fall of Ludwig's sanity and humanity was perhaps the greatest catastrophe Gascoigne had had in a while. Those close to the church turned into hideous things as they all partook in the richest blood. Fuelled by it: manipulated by it, savaged by it.

The streets were curdled into restless moaning as the Yharnam people sought bloodlust, half forgetting what they were meant to do; so half-turned were they by the blood they took. And so Gascoigne started what Ludwig had left half finished.

He leapt from his pinnacle of safety and spilled down into the musty streets where coffins stood up against rails and where obese crows sucked down on contaminated corpses.

It wasn't long before dingy eyes full of disease spotted him. "Foul beast!"

Gascoigne knew them all once upon a time when they were human and the streets were clean and cluttered by busy horse and carriage. Now to him they were nothing but hellish half monsters craving their next fix.

He brought his axe down on a skull, splitting it in half as he felt the force go up his arm. Blood slapped onto his cape and sleeves but it didn't bother him.

Someone else was coming up behind him. He sprung round, faster than a wolf, and sunk down that townsman as well before he had time to raise his machete.

Gore splattered the sweaty stone he trod upon.

"Gascoigne." Said an old voice he knew well.

Snarling at being disturbed, he gazed upwards, the brightness of the moon skewering his sight. Eileen sat on the perch he had not long ago left to deal with these blood curdling townspeople. Her feathery cape trailed about her like darkness, and her vacant beak mask stared down at him, revealing nothing of her intentions, or his emotions. Gascoigne had known her since he had entered a covenant with the Healing Church. Even then she had been a proficient hunter capable of slaughtering beasts other hunters shied at. But she was getting old. Sooner or later she would fall into a grave of her own.

"What can I do you for? Eileen?"

The crow mask stared at him hard before the voice inside it replied; "Don't let it all go to your head. It's just a job. Nothing more."

"A job? You take it this lightly? Families must be protected? The streets must be cleansed!"

She seemed to ruffle the feathers about her cloak as she stood up. "My family is dead, Gascoigne. But even so, I try not to take it personally. Sooner or later this frenzy of yours will be your downfall."

"Isolation and fighting unaided will be your downfall, Eileen. It's enough to put the heart crossways."

"And you? I suppose you find it heroic? To wipe the townsfolk aside with so much hatred inside you? I don't want to lose you, but your hatred and bitterness is very profound." Gascoigne spat at the ground. "You should return to your family. Cherish them."

"We are hunters, crow. We do not shirk. I'm gunna head on now. Do my shopping."

He didn't look at her again as he headed on, the axe head resting on his shoulder as he walked through the blood of his corpses.

He wanted to move on, he wanted to get through Cathedral Ward and get to the heart of the nightmare just as Eileen did. But the Cleric had scored a lucky blow against him. It wasn't much, and it would hopefully heal in time, but the wound went deep into his side. The only way round was going to the other side of town, where the sewers were. There he'd find Oedon Grave, and a little beyond that, Odeon Chapel. It meant leaving his family. But to truly save them, he had to stop this disease before it snagged them too.

If he lost his family, he would truly go mad.

Perhaps Eileen was right. Perhaps he was too obsessed with the hunt. Even when he got home, it was all he could think about, all he cared about. Trained hunters were often left with this curse; to fight and fight until they were exhausted. So his family would play the musical box for him, to help him remember. And he'd walk through his ugly obsession and be the father they needed.

It was hard to count the days and keep track of time when it was never daylight.

Gascoigne had reached Oedon, and the grave was as messy as he remembered it. Bodies had been buried on top of bodies in the earlier days of the plague when there had been more hunters. Now this place was eerie, dark and haunted. The great marker in the centre stood tall and somehow noble in a place of visceral death.

He had come here in the hopes of finding a way round the gate blocking him to the Cathedral Ward, and in a way he was avoiding another bite from Ludwig: now a beast himself. The wound hurt deep and he knew he would not return to his family again. He would leave Yharnam but first he had to rest. He felt dizzy, and often more than ever he felt great blood urges that even the vials could not sedate. The stench of Yharnam was sickening.

As he explored the grave, he smelt blood. A young Yharnam man, turned by the plague, was feasting on a corpse. Hatred raged within him, and he clubbed the bastard to death with his axe. Each hack of the blade gave him pleasure and disgust combined. Meat sprayed in every direction, and the coppery stench flayed into his hair and face. But the bandages there stopped the spray from getting into his eyes.

"Umbasa." He ruminated quietly at the bloodied pieces.

Perhaps he had stayed there too long as he wandered about the gravestones, reminiscing about blood. The wound only festered until it made him impatient and short-sighted. Stray creatures came, and he tore into them with his axe, thinking of his failure in the shadow of Ludwig as he hacked into flesh, turning their limbs into chunks.

"Gascoigne! No!" The voice was too soft, too silky to belong. Not in his world where darkness laced out with red-tinged madness and screams harrowed him to sleep.

He looked up though the thick bandaging masking his sight to see her running across a corpse-ridden grave. On her chest was that red brooch that he had given her one birthday many nights ago.

He stood over the latest abomination he had killed, relishing the scent of its spilled blood. It gave him adrenaline sex never could. It owned him. Ruled him. He was fuelled by the blood, manipulated by the blood, savaged by the blood. There would be no turning back now. Not for him.

He turned to Viola slowly, hate and madness in his dark eyes.

She stood at a distance, dragging herself to a halt from her once-fierce run here. The bottom of her dress was dirty with sludge and blood. She had come all the way from the stinking streets and through the sewers for him. Now she stood uncertainly, unsure. He did not look as she remembered him.

He snorted at her, and readied the axe.

"Gascoigne!" Her voice, cool and fragile in the mist, came to him, helping him clear his insatiable mind from his blood frenzy. "Come home! Look at what the hunt is doing to you! You'll go mad! Your girls miss you!"

"What are ya doing here, woman? This is no place for you! Go home!"

"Not without you! We'll endure this terror together! You're coming home!"

"Home? Not while I have beasts to slay!"

"You're half mad with the hunt! Come with me! Think of your family!"

The gloating notes of the musical box came to him for a moment and he stepped forwards.

Viola looked behind him, and saw creatures unfold from the mist.

The grave, he found too late, was a gathering ground for half-turned Yharnamites as they travelled from their chaotic town to revel in the musk of the dead. They came in their burbling herds with their tools and rusty weapons. Gascoigne knew the drill. He had killed dozens all in one sitting, but he had always been alone, with no one to protect or to distract him.

"Run!" He growled at her. "Get out of here, woman!"

Viola saw that her retreat was blocked by shuffling townspeople, townspeople who were quick when they scented prey. So she took off for the long stairs leading up to Oedon Chapel. But she was not as quick. And Gascoigne overestimated his own abilities. Inflected with the wound, Gascoigne could not topple them as quickly as he thought he could. And he saw her run into two Yharnamites. With his elongated trick-axe he pushed back the group who sneered and wailed on him, and the blade cut through their chests, opening up ribs.

Just as he cleared them, cursing and shouting, he sprinted after her. Viola was brought down by claws and teeth as she tried to escape them. Gascoigne hurtled into them, clipping them back with his weapon and blowing two away with his blunderbuss. He grabbed her and bore her easily, running up the stairs and along the paving along the high railing. From there he jumped down onto the roof to get away, only to be followed by more abominations.

Hot with rage and hate, he hacked them back, but they were strong in numbers. He wondered if this was what Eileen was warning him about, and figured in the same instant that it was too late to dwell on her strange prophecy now.

All men were beasts. And if they were still sane, it was only a matter of time until they too became something they were never supposed to be. Hunters were easily corrupted by this evil. And in time, even they would be unrecognisable under the guise of the beast.

Leaving Viola dying on the rooftop, he jumped down and started hacking away at the last survivor, his blade hot with death. His arm, heavy with exertion, kept bringing his weapon down until he severed the neck from the torso. The Grave was riddled with his carnage. Fresh blood trickled down damp earth already saturated in past killings.

When the deed was done, Gascoigne violently pulled his axe away from wet flesh when he caught the whiff of an intruder. The smell was new, and strangely familiar. He knew that smell.

It was the smell of another hunter.

While gazing down at the all-deserving person he had decimated, he breathed, "...Beasts all over the shop... You'll be one of them, sooner or later..."

The End


End file.
